Tag: RV cooking

Davis Mountains, Fort Davis Texas

Davis Mountain State Park is a quiet Texas state park nestled in the Davis Mountains(surprise!). It has 100 sites, sites with water($15), some with water and electric($20), and some with sewer hookups and cable also($25). They also charge a $6 per day per person entrance fee. If you’ll be in Texas a while it’s well worth it to buy their state park pass which waves the entrance fees. The sites were fairly spacious and open with nice views of the mountains. The water and electric sites were back-in only while the ones with sewer were pull through. The odd thing about the layout was that the dump station was on the wrong side when leaving the campground. So you had to go around the loop to get it on the correct side and then go around the loop again to get out (weird). A small town with groceries, gas, restaurants etc. was only 5 miles from the campground. Be sure to pick up some Julio’s ”Hotter than hell chips” while in town for some of the best tortilla chips I’ve had.

There were a number of both hiking and biking trails. One of them ran from the campground 3 miles to Fort Davis National Monument. The fort was built pre civil war and a number of the buildings had been fully restored including furniture so you could see how the soldiers lived back then. If three miles is too far to hike you could also drive up skyline drive and take a shorter one mile hike or just drive the main road straight to the fort.

Skyline Drive was quite a nice scenic little road. It was very steep with a number of switchbacks like a hiking trail that took you to the top of two different peaks overlooking the campground and the town. It also allowed us to get the reception on our phones that was lacking down in the campground. It was a great place(and popular) to come and watch the sunset and then view the stars. We rode our bikes up the first night there and it had us huffing and puffing. Also available close by is the McDonald Observatory that offers star parties($15pp) on Friday and Saturday where you get to see what a REAL telescope can do.

If camping isn’t your thing they also offered rooms in an “Indian Lodge” along with a restaurant.

Five star scale rating
Scenery – ****
Campground – ****
Campsite – ***
Recreation – ****

Big Bend sausage soup

Victoria came up with this soup a couple days ago here in Big Bend. We had been planning to make white chicken chili but the chicken was spoiled, so instead she went freestyle. This is much better than any white chicken chili I ever had.

If you enjoy spicy food then you have to give this soup a try. It was spicy enough that I didn’t put hot sauce in it! The mixture of the jalapenos and serrano peppers really provides both heat and flavor to the soup. The sour cream really mixes well with the heat and personally I think some cheese would go good on the top (habanero jack!). If you like Tex-Mex but can’t handle too much heat you can seed all of the peppers along with the ribs or even leave a few of the peppers out altogether. Shoot us a comment if you try it out. Buen provecho!!

Big Bend sausage soup

2 cans white beans (one small white and one navy or pinto, rinse and drain can juice)
2 corn ears grilled
4 jalapenos diced (remove seeds and ribs)
2 serrano peppers sliced (keep seeds and ribs)
1 can green chilis diced
3 garlic cloves minced
1 box chicken broth
1 lime
8 ounces of smoked sausage (chopped after grilling)
olive oil
salt

Generously apply butter to corn and grill until browned all over. Grill sausage with corn. Put oil in skillet and cook peppers and garlic until soft (3 minutes) add salt to cooking peppers (helps release juice). Add green chilis. Pour in chicken stock and beans. Bring to boil and then simmer. Once sausage and corn is done, roughly chop sausage and remove kernals from corn with a chefs knife and put all into soup. Juice lime into soup (watch out for seeds). Simmer another 10 min or so and it’s done. Serve with a dollop of sour cream and chopped cilantro (optional). Soup is spicy, to make it milder remove seeds and ribs from serrano peppers.

First night camping with the RV

Cooking our first dinner: Chicken Enchiladas
Cooking our first dinner:
Chicken Enchiladas

Location: Hanna Park Jacksonville, FL

Tim and I have tent camped at Hanna Park before, however this is the first time we have come here with a 31 foot behemoth in tow. In fact, as many of you already know this is our first of many nights we will be living, breathing, cooking, showering, number one-ing and two-ing in the RV. Which is why we decided to camp a couple nights in Jacksonville- to test out all the systems before leaving town.

It didn’t take long for us to make our first mistake. Driving down the shaded forest road to park at our site we quickly realized we had drove down the wrong row. It was geometrically impossible for us to maneuver our rig into the diagonal site. When we backed the rig up to correct, her ass went right into the bushes. I felt a slight panic come over me as I had no clue how to instruct Tim. It was at that moment two friendly neighbors came to our rescue. The veteran rv-er knew exactly how Tim needed to turn to get us out of the bushes, the other held the foliage away from the RV. I was impressed, hoping that we would one day acquire such sagacity. After getting out of the bush we repeated the process down the correct row with success. Instant relief. Next time, we will ask the park ranger the best way to approach the site.

So far everything is functional. Nothing broke on the drive here (knock on wood). Everything inside is clean and organized. The AC is blowing nicely and not too loud. I highly recommend the juice for the toilet (will post more on this in the future). Wish us luck, as we embark for Blackwater State Forest on Monday!

Click on picture below to load gallery! Inside and outside shots of the RV!